1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an animal and rodent control system and to a method of use of the subject system. In particular, it relates to an animal and rodent control system that is capable of delivering a unique liquid control agent to a targeted area which is considered to be a hazardous area because it is being defended or occupied by a small wild animal such as a raccoon or a rodent such as a possum. More particularly, the invention relates to a system that comprises a portable kit that includes a plurality of hollow, frangible projectiles; a gas or compressed air projectile launching device; a means for filling the projectiles; and a supply of select, natural liquids and/or oils that will be dispensed into the projectiles, said select, natural liquids uniquely capable of permanently repelling the small animal or rodent without the need to maim, kill or harm the animal and/or rodent.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Community expansion and suburban growth has led to the destruction of the natural habitats for many of our small-to-medium sized animals, birds and reptiles. As a result, it is not uncommon to find deer, raccoons, opossums, skunks, badgers, rats, mice and other small animals or rodents resorting to foraging of restaurant or home garbage cans. Furthermore, it is common for some small animals like raccoons, opossums, weasels, squirrels and skunks, to take up residency inside the attic and crawl space areas of homes or in the sheds and pole barns located on the property. Once inside, these small animals are extremely difficult to remove and many of them have been known to carry the rabies virus. The raccoon is also known to be one of the most vicious and tenacious animals out of this group when defending its young or when it feels trapped or cornered.
Along those lines, many forms of traps have been invented to deal with this problem. Early forms of such traps included snares that are designed to choke to death the animal that is snared. Others use clamping jaws or arms to maim the animal to the point it dies or outright kills the animal. The public outcry and lobbying efforts of the PETA organization has led to the development of more humane traps that restrain the animal, thereby allowing the return of the still-alive animal back into the wild. However, a problem with those types of traps is that they require a human to remove the trap and enclosed animal from the area in which it was caught. Many times, a handler of such traps is bitten or scratched by the animal, which leads to the possibility and fear of contracting rabies. Due to the rabies potential, many animal control experts would prefer to outright kill the animal rather than worry about its safety. However, traps that are designed to kill the animal have been outlawed in many areas of the country. Furthermore, whatever type of trap, it must be placed in the same area where the animal is habitating and/or controlling in order for it to be effective. Placing and setting a trap can be extremely dangerous to the animal control expert as most of these animals will fight rather than vacate the area while a trap is being set. Moreover, once the trap is set, many animals will suspiciously avoid going near the trap, making it useless.
In rural areas, farmers take the most expedient and effective means for removing the animal; they simply shoot and kill it. However, that means to an end is not practical in suburban settings for several reasons. First and foremost, are the laws that prevent such measures. Discharging a firearm within city limits is a criminal misdemeanor, as is carrying a gun without a permit. Furthermore, firing live ammunition in a suburban setting could lead to catastrophic results. Moreover, the public outcry against shooting and killing the animals, even if they are considered to be known pests or varmints, would be unending. Furthermore, shooting live ammunition inside a house would likely destroy the area surrounding the target.
Another methodology that has been used with limited success is the use of chemicals and poisons that are designed for digestion by the animal. However, some small animals and rodents have become tolerant to the chemicals and/or poisons. For example, rats have become especially tolerant to certain poisons, while raccoons have been found to be immune to chemical repellents such as benzaldehydes, cinnamic aldehydes, and methyl salicylate, among others. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,686,255, a chemical methodology for repelling small animals is disclosed. There, the inventor claims that certain cyclohexyl compounds and cyclohexyl isocyanates and thiocyanates, when applied to an animal or to its habitat, can act as an effective animal repellent. However, applying these chemicals requires the administrator to directly touch the animal itself or enter the zone being occupied by the animal. In either situation, the administrator is placing himself in an unsafe and compromised position. The inventor is not aware of a commercially available chemical product that has been found to be effective over a broad range of applications with different types of small animals and rodents.
One of the biggest drawbacks of using chemicals and/or poisons for animal control is that these chemicals and poisons are very heavily regulated by the EPA since they are considered hazardous materials. Materials regulated by the EPA require special permits to purchase and use such materials along with extensive training, reporting and inspections. Furthermore, the costs for obtaining the permits, the costs to train, and the special carriers needed to transport and/or dispense such materials create an onerous burden. Many small animal and pest control companies cannot adequately deal with these burdens, let alone afford the licensing fees and other related costs to even consider use of most chemical and/or poisons and methods.
Due to the longstanding nature of the varmint problem, one might expect that an effective and safe solution would be in common use, but this is not the case. There is still a long-felt need to provide an effective means of controlling such small animals without killing or maiming them and doing so in a manner that complies with municipal codes and state laws and regulations that pertain to discharging a firearm within city limits or pertain to the perceived inhumane treatment of these animals or rodents. One such methodology invented by the present applicant, involves the new use of a compressed gas/air launching device to deliver a control agent to an area defended or controlled by a small wild animal or a rodent or even a family of the same. Dispersion of the pre-selected control agent in or about the nesting area of the animal or rodent will permanently rid the area of that animal, and it does so in a manner that does not violate any laws and is completely safe, as will be explained later herein. To date, the inventor is not aware of any system that provides a safe means for an animal control professional to permanently and safely rid an area of an unwanted small wild animal or rodent without the use of chemicals or poisons and which demands no special permits to operate said system.
As mentioned above, the present invention involves the use of a compressed air/gas launching device that fires non-lethal projectiles which are an integral component in controlling the small animals and rodents. Prior to consideration as an animal control system and methodology, the introduction and popularity of compressed air/gas launching devices and their associated projectiles grew out of a new type of interactive game where the participants engaged in pretend, combative war games. In that gaming application, teams of players were provided with a compressed gas launching device, known as a paintball gun, and a number of spherically shaped projectiles, known as paintballs, which function as the ammunition. The paintballs were filled with a non-toxic, water-soluble paint or dye, and when a competitor was struck by a paintball, it would rupture and mark the participant as being “killed,” all without injury to the participant. As an outgrowth of the game, the paintball gun was later adapted by police departments and the U.S. military, where similar, but more advanced systems were developed as an effective means for conducting training exercises without the use of live ammunitions.
Police departments have especially embraced paintball systems because steadily-rising crime rates have led to an increased need for technologically-enhanced, non-lethal crime fighting devices in response to the proliferation of excessive use of force claims against law enforcement agencies. Such claims have significantly increased as the public has become more aware of and made more sensitive to the use of lethal force. This has been found to be especially true in situations where lethal force may not be required, such as where suspects are armed with dangerous, but non-lethal objects like sticks, rocks, screwdrivers, chairs, etc. Non-lethal paintball systems were found to be a perfect fit for temporarily incapacitating, slowing, repelling or inhibiting a suspected criminal and/or for marking such individuals for later identification. Moreover, the risk that a criminal will surround himself with or be in close proximity to innocent people when officers are trying to subdue him/her, thereby increases the complexity of subduing a suspect without applying lethal force. In those specific situations, it was common to use non-lethal devices such as stun guns, mace, tear gas, and liquid pepper spray devices that impair the vision, breathing or other physical or mental capabilities of the target. However, those types of non-lethal devices are designed for use when operating in close range to a subject, where the safety of the user may be at risk. The adaptation of paintball gun systems in the implementation of vision and breathing impairing pepper powders and liquids has proven to be very successful and especially beneficial since a paintball can be launched from a safe distance away. However successful these systems were in impairing or incapacitating a human being with the pepper powders, they were never used for animal control purposes or ever tested to determine if they would cause the same reactions in wild animals.
Instead, early improvements related to paintball systems involved the development of an improved, non-lethal projectile for delivering a marking substance to its target. That improvement was disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,254,379, issued to Kotsiopoulos, et al., which is incorporated herein by reference. That disclosure was directed primarily to a paint ball gun and improved projectile that delivered a non-pressurized payload of a paint or dye to a human target and expelled the paint or dye onto the target upon impact so as to “mark” the target. Prior to development of the Kotsiopoulos paintball, a traditional paintball was formed from a pair of hemispheres made of a gelatinous material similar to that used to encase oral medicines. As with the casing of oral medicines, the gelatin paintballs were soluble in water. Water soluble vegetable dyes are often used as the coloring agent added to increase the opacity of the mark left by the breaking paint ball. The vegetable dye colorants, usually being dissolved in water, cause the gelatin based shell of the traditional paintball to dissolve. The same problem occurs with other liquid components, such as chemical mixtures, thereby limiting the applications where a gelatin shell can be used. To combat the difficulties presented by the low water tolerance of a gelatin paintball, the water soluble colorant solutions were commonly mixed with ethylene glycol and polyethylene glycol, or in propylene glycol. However, those mixtures were found to be especially troublesome as they were generally considered to be toxic substances and contact with human skin was found to be problematic. While glycol-based marking colorants prevented the internal destruction of the paintball shell, a gelatin shell paintball nonetheless remained exceedingly vulnerable to the vagaries of the external environment. For instance, rain, sweat from a user's body, and even high humidity were found to alter or damage the gelatin shell on its outside surface, thereby rendering the paintball inaccurate or in many cases unusable. The Kotsiopoulos paint ball on the other hand, was formed of two semi-rigid, plastic shell portions that were joined together to form a rigid paintball shell that was impervious to water. By design, that paintball would entirely fracture upon impact with the target and locally disperse the internal pay load. One drawback of the Kotsiopoulos paintball is that it is a smaller projectile compared to typical gelatin paintballs, such that the volume of the agent carried therein is limited by the smaller, internal volume of the paint ball shell. Subsequently, various other developments were made to improve the gelatin type of paintball projectile so as to improve its range, path of delivery, and effectiveness in dispersing the control agent to specific areas surrounding the target. Such developments are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,546,874, 6,393,992, and 5,965,839, all to Vasel, et al.
In a totally different application, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,772,694 to Pierce, III, et al., a paintball gun and projectile were found to be especially useful in the delivery of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and other biocides to areas that are very difficult to reach or involve hazards in reaching those areas. In that disclosure, a typical paintball gun was used to launch a capsule-like projectile to disperse biocides to the tops of tall trees and for the use in dispensing pesticides to hard-to-reach nests, or nests that were especially dangerous, like hornet or wasp nests. One drawback of the Pierce system was that it had a relatively short effective range of about 30 feet due to the type of projectile being fired.
Other than the above aforementioned applications, the present inventor is unaware of any system that is capable of controlling a small, wild animals or rodents using the methodology and the kit components that are disclosed and described herein.